Hezbollah Setting Up Syrian Refugees as Human Shields?
January 15, 2013 14:39 by Pesach Benson
Everything you need to know about today’s coverage of Israel and the Mideast. Join the Israel Daily News Stream on Facebook.
Today’s Top Stories
1. AFP labels the Tomb of the Patriarchs a “mosque.” I explained why a headline like this plays to a Palestinian propaganda campaign denying Jewish ties to holy sites like Hebron’s.
2. France’s release of terrorist Georges Abdallah was delayed, prompting protests in front of the French embassy in Beirut. The Daily Star writes:
Last week, a French court ruled Abdallah be released on condition that he be deported back to Lebanon, but the French Interior Ministry had not signed the order to expel him by Monday.
The prisoner’s brother, Joseph Abdallah, said the only explanation for the delay was that the French judiciary had “succumbed to U.S. pressure.”
Abdallah was convicted for the 1982 murders Israeli and American officials Yaakov Bar-Simantov and Lt. Col. Charles Ray in Paris.
3. McClatchy News reports that Hezbollah’s aiding Syrian refugees who fled to Lebanon. I’ll wager they’re setting up the refugees as human shields, with weapons caches hidden in and around the homes Hezbollah’s welfare “wing” kindly provides:
“We have provided more than 2,000 houses and apartments in Nabatiyeh and the surrounding villages,” Wahda said. “Some homes have two or three families in them.”
The group is providing similar assistance to refugees in other parts of the country, even as its fighters are reportedly battling on the side of the Syrian government.
4. To its credit, the NY Times picked up on Mohammed Morsi’s anti-Semitic video. As HonestReporting asks: will other news services recognize the story and follow suit?
5. Facebook deactivated (update: and has now reactivated) the account of one of the bravest Palestinian journalists, Khaled Abu Toameh. His crime? Posting articles on PA corruption. How could Facebook play ball with the smear campaign?
Israel and the Palestinians
• Obama: “Israel Doesn’t Know What Its Best Interests Are”
With each new settlement announcement, in Obama’s view, Netanyahu is moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation . . .
For Israel, the short-term consequences of Obama’s frustration are limited. The U.S. won’t cut off its aid to Israel, and Obama’s effort to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions will continue whether or not he’s fed up with Netanyahu.
But it is in terms of American diplomatic protection — among the Europeans and especially at the UN — that Israel may one day soon notice a significant shift.
• The NY Post got the scoop on some bad news from the legal front:
A US judge has ruled that the Palestinian Authority has the right to cover up a memo linking it to a suicide bombing that killed two teen American citizens in Israel, The Post has learned.
The document — accidentally handed over to lawyers suing the authority for $300 million on behalf of the teens’ parents — reveals a “close relationship” between the bomber and a captain in the Palestinian Authority security forces who planned the terror attack, court papers say. . .
But court papers say it links Sadeq Hafez, an operative for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, to Raed Nazal, “who was both a salaried officer in the PA’s security services and a leader of the PFLP cell in Qalqilya,” a Palestinan city in the West Bank.
• YNet: The IDF discovered a Gaza tunnel leading into Israel while investigating a ground collapse near the border fence.
• Israel’s fixing up national heritage sites including ones on the politically incorrect side of the Green Line. So, for example, handicap accessibility to Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs is an international incident because Israel’s the one undertaking it. AP coverage.
• Another non-governmental organization makes another call for a boycott of settlement produce in the EU. Such NGO talk is cheap, but given the veneer of an Al Haq report, it’s irresistible to The Guardian. ‘Nuff said.
william wiseman
4:24 am
Jan 16, 2013
AFP Americans For Peace of hogwash
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Gregory Watchman
4:43 am
Jan 16, 2013
Media bias against Israel is unnerving and disheartening. I see it every day and hear it constantly from people I would never suspect as being either anti-Semitic or drinking the liberal Kool-Aid of anti-colonialism.
Over the last decade, I’ve witnessed the ramp-up of vehement hatred of Israel and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. I also see the “Zionist” term glibly tossed around all too often.
Israel is the Cup of Trembling. They’re scared sh*tless and deep down inside they know, but their sanitized, scrubbed, and bleached minds can’t comprehend what is happening. The UN spends 1/3 of its time deliberating over Israel. Really? Why is that?
My prayers are with you all.
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Tuvia Fogel
12:26 pm
Jan 16, 2013
Notre Dame is also a mosque. Parisians just don’t know it yet.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Dany
3:03 pm
Jan 16, 2013
Well, well, Mr. President, do you know what is best for Israel? I doubt it! You don’t even know what’s is good for the Arabs around the Middle East! You don’t know what’s good for the Muslims in Asia! You don’t know what’s good for the Europeans! By the way do you know what’s good for the USA?? We have seen your knowledge of your country has done in the past four years, G-d help the Americans for the next four! Please solve your problems before you put your kind of solutions on ISRAEL. Thank you for your agreement.
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emes
9:58 pm
Jan 16, 2013
Doesn’t anyone remember that Jews had to buy back their own land and they paid more per acre than the finest soil in all of America – AND they paid more than $24.– and a bottle of beer!
When is any President going to apologise to the American Indians for “stealing their land,” their livelihood, their hunting grounds, even their opportunities to lift a “scalp” when necessary – and have they ever apologied for “building on land which was sacred to American Indians?” – maybe I missed something!
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